Wanted: Dead or Alive

Time to unplug for a moment and talk about gaming the old-fashioned way: with dice, cards and funny-shaped plastic bits. In particular, today we're going to talk about a card game called Wyatt Earp from Rio Grande Games. This is a card game based around the theme of bounty hunting and bringing famous outlaws to justice in the American Old West.

In reality, Wyatt Earp is a variation of Rummy. Each player spends their turn drawing and discarding cards in an attempt to make a set of five identical outlaws which they can exchange in to collect the bounty for that individual. Multiple players can collect on the same bounty but the reward is split between the two. This leads to players trying to make sure that they are the only person to collect that bounty and they can do this by sabotaging and thwarting their rivals through the use of various special cards such as Hideouts that temporarily prevent the collection of a bounty. Players can also increase the bounty on their targets by playing "crime" cards like Stagecoach Robbery that make them worth more money.

There is also the addition of the Wyatt Earp card which acts as a special wildcard that can be used to get rid of setbacks played against you among other things. This adds in an additional level of strategy as there are a limited number of Earps in the deck so a skill in card counting can give you an edge in the game if you can keep track of who has Earps and how many have been played.

Wyatt Earp is a fun little game that can realistically be played between 30 - 45 minutes. and comfortably can play up to four people. It's western theme isn't as pronounced as its direct competitor Bang! but it makes up for it in simplicity and quickness of play. If you're looking for a card game to play and you're sick of Uno and its ilk, you could certainly do worse than to give Wyatt Earp a spin.